Has Tinder Changed the Landscape of Online Dating?

You might be wondering what an article about Tinder is doing here at ShoutMeLoud? And I have a pretty good reason for it. In last few months I met numerous blogger friends & freelancers who told me about tinder, and how they are finding their date using this app. Initially I thought it’s just another app, but with time this single app has changed the way we all dating. From Facebook to Tinder, Online dating has definitely changed by this free app. Being an online guy, It’s important for you to know about this cool online dating mobile app, and you never know how your life would change with single swipe.

One ‘Swipe’ at a time, Tinder has changed the face of modern day dating. In this age of fast growing Mobile commerce and Billions of Mobile applications hitting the market, at some point of time Dating too was about to be revolutionised. The best thing about Technology is that something could become obsolete in an instant which was touted to lead the way ahead forever. Online dating could easily be traced back and associated with the early websites and the creation of the Internet itself.

All this time, dating was about creating a profile at one of those networks and let the algorithms do the magic trick for us to find us someone to date. But the inception of a single mobile application was about to challenge all our prevailing perceptions about online dating! This single mobile application that has challenged all our notions about online dating goes by the name of – Tinder. We will be taking a look at this ubiquitous app that is omnipresent in mobile devices all over the world and the very reason for Tinder becoming so popular among cupids.

What is Tinder?

For those of you not particularly interested in the online dating thing or haven’t heard of it before somehow, Tinder is simply put a mobile dating app. One can go ahead and say, there were tons of online dating applications before, but why Tinder? We’ll talk further about it later, but you must know that Tinder has reportedly 50 Million users in its tow. With over 10 million Daily active users, 1.2 Billion Swipes and over a Billion matches made, Tinder is by far the most popular dating app among the 25-34 year old.

Even with the introduction of Tinder Plus for access to their premium services, 24% of Tinder users pay up for it. Apart from the the regular audience, Tinder also draws attention from the likes of celebrities like Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Shane Warne, Ed Sheeran and many more. Hollywood too is ‘Swiping Right’ to Tinder to land them a date online. While many people reported to have no luck finding a good match on Tinder, there are equally numerous people to have been more than entertained with this application. So, all of it leads us to this – What makes it so popular among cupids?

What makes Tinder so popular for online dating?

There have been numerous online dating websites to have embraced the Internet and although many of them were pretty popular during their times, have now quickly become obsolete. The young millennial crowd no longer prefer the filling up of profiles online and would like their dating agenda follow with them onto their mobile devices. Tinder being a standalone mobile application quickly got its approval from hordes of youngsters. The ‘Swipe’ dating was one of the unique selling point of Tinder. Tinder involved showing up of profiles nearby according to your preference and users can Swipe Left, meaning to Hide them or can Swipe Right, meaning to Like them. If both the pairs of users Swipe Right on subsequent profiles, Tinder matches them.

The users profiles and pictures are drawn from their Facebook profile, killing off any concerns of fake users. Given that users were no longer required to fill up lengthy forms describing themselves, Tinder seemed more informal in its approach to online dating. Ease-of-use (Simple swiping) and a clean interface which focused only on the person’s Image and little about their interests became another key factor in Tinder’s favour. Catching users diminishing attention spans is one of the key areas to succeed as an online application these days and Tinder did just that. Being completely mobile-only was one of the biggest tipping point to its success.

How Tinder revolutionised Online Dating

Now this is something many Tinder users would love to argue about. Has Tinder really changed the landscape of Online Dating? Well, it is a straight ‘Yes’ in many possible ways. If we go back to the concept of Dating in its very early days, people would visit a nearby Bar or Interest meetup groups to meet new people and hook up with them. It is fair enough to say that the better looking guys and girls got the most attention and once a conversation is struck up, they decide for themselves if they match up better.

When the concept of Online Dating came to its being, it was touted as the next big thing and millions of users hoarded to these networks to find a perfect date nearby or just a pen pal. These networks required users to fill up their profile with the given long scrapes of forms, and many a times they could also be easily duped. Tinder captured the essence of dating the way it was meant to be in the early days and not just being about algorithms and lengthy profile forms. The app did away with everything irrelevant to dating and struck up a system where you could just browse for profiles, learn about their interests and Swipe Left or Right based on how you perceive them.

Although Computers and Algorithms have long prevailed in this industry of Online dating, they are left clueless to when it comes to the most humane act of finding someone who matches to our likes. Sometimes, just the logical and scientific approach to dating falls short of representing our very own ability to find true love. And who would one trust in the guesswork involved in finding a date? Computers or your own Gut instincts?

Tinder clearly revolutionised the way people meet online, One Swipe at a Time!

The Way ahead for Tinder

Now that Tinder has introduced Tinder Plus, offering users premium services and with the in-app marketing, it gets going on the revenue fronts. This mobile dating application has convinced its Investors of it being a successful business-model, so everything is pretty sorted out on the financial fronts. When it comes to the acceptance of users, it is only bulging in terms of user capacity and the number of daily visitors and swipes or matches being made. Tinder is clearly a favourite among the cupids worldwide and it is there to stay for some time now. Knocking Tinder off its perch couldn’t be foreseeable at this moment, but its possibility could not be refuted.

Just like the scenario of Online dating in the early days of the Internet, Tinder could not be hailed as a tool that will sustain all the challenges that are on its way. Nothing is permanent in Technology and a competitor might be just across its wings, trying to challenge for the top spot. But one thing that prevails as of now is the way Tinder has challenged the perceptions on Online dating and how it brings back the personal emotional touch back to dating.

While you just found out the most happening way to online dating, here is a video to start your journey with. This is a funny video, which you will understand once you have swiped “Left” or “right” couple of times:

What are your thoughts regarding this omnipresent dating mobile application and its impact on the digital dating fronts? Shout out your thoughts and experiences with Tinder below.

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A Shouter whose articles got mentions from the likes of The New York Times, Kissmetrics and AllTopStories. He writes articles, novels and poems; spends most of his time reading everything he could get his hands on. Srikanth is currently pursuing his Masters from The University of Illinois and holds a Bachelors in Electronics Engineering from the University of Mumbai. He is a programmer, a motivational writer and speaker.

Thank you for your comment. Tinder is actually quite misunderstood in India. While some might be perceiving at as Shaadi.com or Orkut v2.0, the other half are trying to install it on their Samsung Guru device, or better yet, haven’t yet heard about it. Install an app and get dates works the same way as the Deodorant commercials, it just doesn’t. As I’ve mentioned in the article, although Better looks get the better dates, a pinch of personality and sense of humour go a long way.

First, let me admit, the idea of online dating just hasn’t caught on to me as yet especially with catfishing. I do know though that it has worked for many and I have friends encouraging me to try it out. WIth a little push from your blog posts I tried it and well after two days I deleted the app (lol) I didn’t think I used the Facebook login option properly so none of my pics came over. And as for the swipe left and right, sigh I needed a ‘maybe’ option lol. Maybe I will try out Tinder again just maybe.

So it is a location-based social discovery application. Now I may find someone compatible with me in my own country. I have read it uses facebook to gather profile pictures and users profile which is nice.

Hello Srikanth, Thanks for telling me about this. I was not aware of such app exist and I will try it for sure..! This sounds so cool and easy to use as well! And I’m very much agree that this app is misunderstood in India. People call it as a match making place where they just look for the partner and think future with them.. Well, for the online dating it must be a great app! Sugandha!

I really appreciate the way you have explained each and every feature of Tinder. Though a group of people are using Tinder just for finding casual partners, this is an amazing app to find a friend. It depends on you how you use it!